Maintaining multiple social networks is hard it turns out.

[stunt_muppet]

It sort of hit me the other day that between content aggregators like Pinterest and blogging sites like this I have five different active  social network accounts and on any given day I remember that I have maybe two of them.

I've been a little less active on any of them recently anyway and I'd like to say it's because I've been having exciting adventures but it's mostly because I've been playing video games.

Comments

[enemyofperfect]

You have my complete sympathy! I think two platforms is about the number I've ever managed to keep up with, too.

I hope your video games have supplied exciting adventures of another kind! I've been subsisting mainly on Doctor Who, a few fanfics here and there, and StarCraft II, which at nine years old is ancient in gaming terms, I guess?

[stunt_muppet]

I mean for some of them I've been making a conscious choice to use them less - I've been taking a break from Facebook and usually just check a few friends' pages for updates, and for a while I wasn't reading Tumblr as much both because it was having persistent technical issues and because there was some drama that I was tired of reading about. I forget what drama that even was. The rest of them? Plain forgot.

I mean, Starcraft II may be 9 years old but there's still a booming competitive scene - which possibly has as much to do with Blizzard being able to offer lucrative cash prizes, but there's still new strategies and playstyles being developed by the competitive sector. Fiancee watches the tournaments and while it's not really my thing (turns out I feel the same about watching e-sports as I do about watching most other sports, namely that I'm not that interested), it's still kind of interesting because I had no idea there was still that much going into the game.

While I've still been playing a lot of Darkest Dungeon I've also gotten into another rouguelike called Death Road to Canada, which has a similar playstyle but a considerably different tone. I've been streaming a couple of games with Fiancee too, and a few on my own.

[enemyofperfect]

Congratulations on taking a break from some sites intentionally, and on escaping the drama so successfully you can't even remember it anymore. I wish I'd been that intentional about dropping tumblr, but actually I just spent a few weeks away from my computer and couldn't motivate myself to keep up on mobile. I keep thinking about going back to it, but somehow it's as difficult a habit to pick up again as it would have been to voluntarily break.

When I said that about StarCraft's age, I knew you were going to come back with something way more knowledgeable than I had any idea of! I am such a casual gamer I don't usually even think to apply the noun to myself, but I was really fond of RTS games as a kid, and it's been a lot of fun returning to the genre lately. The competitive aspect helps explain why they're still updating it!

Death Road to Canada is an amazing name, and from a peek at the website, it just might be amazing enough to live up to it! If you don't mind a couple of curious questions -- is the personality randomization much of a factor in gameplay? And have you succeeded in befriending any half-wild dogs? :D

[stunt_muppet]

The Tumblr mobile app was having some sort of problem a couple of months ago where I couldn't like posts in the app, so I was having to save anything I wanted to 'like' to drafts, open Tumblr in my mobile browser, and like it from there. So that definitely helped me cut back on the time I spent on Tumblr because I just didn't want to bother.

Honestly forgetting about it is the easiest way and I'm glad you didn't have to go through the trouble of purposefully breaking a habit, because that's never any fun.

I had no idea there was a competitive scene until Fiance started living with me and watching it, but yeah, apparently it's a huge deal in South Korea especially. Teams and competitors live in their own Team Houses so they can train all day. It's funny that you mention that you're a casual gamer because RTSs like Starcraft were always way too complex for me - I'd lose track of everything that was going on and keep my strategies too simple. Puzzles and single-party RPGs are much more my speed!

[enemyofperfect]

Oh wow, what a pain that app situation must have been!

Competitive gaming is kind of amazing to me, partly because you can make money playing video games now and I'm pretty sure my 10 year old self would never have believed that, and partly because I can get so anxious playing games just for fun, I have no idea how people can cope with the stress of competing like that!

It's interesting to me in turn that RTSs were intimidating for you, because what I like about RTSs is that -- playing at a low to moderate difficulty level as I do, anyway -- I feel like it requires very little of me in the area of complex strategy. I only need to perform a few simple tasks (keep supply up, grow my army, point army towards objectives and threats) depending on whatever needs me most at that moment -- whereas thinking three steps ahead in a tile-matching puzzle, say, strains my working memory to the point where I mostly don't bother. Brains can be so different!

[stunt_muppet]

For Death Road, you can vary how random the personality traits are. Your actual stats are always random, but each character has a Trait and a Perk that boost some of their stats or give them an ability. You can either 'roll' a random character until you get a Trait/Perk combo you like, or you can build custom characters and specifically choose their trait and perk.

So, the random stats do affect gameplay (they determine whether you pass various checks, how good you are at fighting zombies, etc), but you have some measure of control over them.

Not only have I managed to recruit several half-wild dogs (and they have all had different character models, including a wonderfully dopey-looking walleyed pug), I have actually had a dog as my sole survivor for a few days after my whole human party got killed! The game gives you dialogue like your journey is over because there's no one left to drive the car, but the dog gets a sudden burst of inspiration, figures out how to turn the key in the ignition, and keeps on driving.

The game's really hard but it makes up for it in part because it makes losing funny.

[enemyofperfect]

Oh, that's really cool about how the personalities work! And I am absolutely delighted to hear that you've recruited multiple good dogs -- and that one of them figured out how to drive the car! "Really hard" is probably outside my frustration comfort zone, but I'm so glad I asked. That's an amazing story.